Foreign media: The printing industry’s industrial output remained stable in the third quarter, and the forecast for the fourth quarter was not optimistic

The stronger than expected growth in orders and output helped the UK printing and packaging industry to continue to recover in the third quarter. However, as confidence expectations continued to decline, the forecast for the fourth quarter was not optimistic.

BPIF’s Printing Outlook is a quarterly research report on the health of the industry. The latest data in the report shows that the frequent increase in input costs, the impact of new energy supply contract costs, and the increased uncertainty caused by the political and economic turbulence in the United Kingdom have also lost confidence in the generally optimistic fourth quarter.

The survey found that 43% of printers successfully increased their output in the third quarter of 2022, and 41% of printers were able to maintain stable output. The remaining 16 per cent experienced a decline in output levels.

28% of companies expect output growth to increase in the fourth quarter, 47% expect that they will be able to maintain a stable output level, and 25% expect their output level to decline.

The forecast for the fourth quarter is that people are worried that the rising cost and output prices will reduce the demand below the level usually expected during the period. Traditionally, there is seasonal growth at the end of the year.

For the third quarter in a row, the energy cost is still the most concerned business problem of the printing company. This time, the energy cost further exceeds the substrate cost.

83% of respondents chose the energy cost, higher than 68% in the previous quarter, while 68% of companies chose the cost of base materials (paper, cardboard, plastic, etc.).

BPIF said that the concerns caused by energy costs were not only their direct impact on the energy bills of printers, because enterprises realized that there was a very close relationship between energy costs and the cost of paper and cardboard they purchased.

Charles Jarrold, CEO of BPIF, said, “From the trend of the past few years after the COVID-19 epidemic, you can see that the industry has recovered strongly, and I think this trend has continued until the third quarter. But the increase of enterprise cost pressure is clearly beginning to have a real impact.”

“One of the uncertain areas is where the government will invest its energy support. It will be targeted in some form. We know that cost growth may be very significant, but this support is absolutely critical to alleviate the terrible rise in energy prices.

“We have completed the information collection and provided a lot of feedback to (the government), including feedback from the whole industry, feedback from more specific companies, and some more specific information.

“We have received a lot of high-quality feedback on the impact of energy prices on the industry, but we can only wait to see how they deal with these impacts.”

Jarrold added that wage pressure and skills acquisition are another major business problem in the top few.

“The demand for apprenticeship training is still quite strong, which is not a bad thing. But obviously, everyone knows that it is really difficult to recruit people now, which obviously leads to wage pressure.”

However, the survey found that the continuous recruitment challenges did not prevent the sustained growth of employment in the third quarter, because, on the whole, more companies employed new employees.

The report also found that the average price level of most companies continued to rise in the third quarter, and most companies also expected to further increase product prices in the fourth quarter.

Finally, the number of printing and packaging companies experiencing “serious” financial difficulties decreased in the third quarter. The number of people experiencing “significant” financial distress increased slightly, but BPIF said that the number was still the same as that of the previous quarter.

The Print Outlook survey was conducted from October 3 to 18, 2022, and received responses from 6801 people from 118 companies, with a total turnover of slightly more than 1 billion pounds.

cigarette paper7


Post time: Nov-24-2022

WhatsApp Online Chat !